“If he’s so dangerous, why didn’t the Builders kill him back then?” Maddox asked.
“Why are you aiming a blaster at me?” Ludendorff demanded. “You already know that an alien mind is influencing yours. I know how to defeat Ghar-Yon-Tog. He knows that and wants to kill me to buy himself time.”
Inside his helmet, Maddox licked his lips. He did feel a growing desire to burn down the meddlesome professor. Ludendorff had played one trick too many on the most illustrious Intelligence agent in Star Watch history. He was the best, the greatest of the undercover operatives—
“No,” Maddox whispered to himself. “There’s your mistake, Ghar-Yon-Tog. I’m not a braggart. You just revealed your thoughts in my mind.”
Pain struck Maddox’s head as an oily sensation hit and threatened more agony if he didn’t obey orders.
Maddox laughed harshly at the threat.
“What’s wrong with you?” Ludendorff shouted.
“Ghar-Yon-Tog is making an open play for my thoughts,” Maddox said through gritted teeth. “But he’s using the wrong levers, trying to force the wrong man. Yes, I’m coming nearer, Professor. It’s time to hook up and travel. Tell me more about the Old Ones while we go—where are we going, by the way?”
“To the transfer portal or, as it’s more properly called, the star gate,” Ludendorff said. “We have to reach the nexus where Ghar-Yon-Tog is imprisoned.
“What?”
“We have to use the star gate linking our two nexuses. It’s the only way we can reach the Old One in time to kill him before the Spacer awakens him.”
“Let’s go,” Maddox said.
***
A few minutes later, Maddox led the way, with the professor hooked to his spacesuit. Riker was in the middle of the thruster-pack caravan, while Meta brought up the rear.
The oily sensation no longer plagued Maddox. Riker and Meta had both admitted to similar impressions. But with the captain explaining how to defeat the Old One’s insinuation attacks, the other two resisted, and finally the mental influences stopped.
The professor had told them such influences would become irresistible once Ghar-Yon-Tog woke up, as these were just dream-induced stimuli.
As Maddox took another turn at speed, piloting almost recklessly, his focus sharpened yet again. He was going to kill this thing. It reminded him of the Ska, and he had come to hate these monstrous aliens, whether from other dimensions or the primeval times of the universe.
“There is one problem I haven’t broached,” Ludendorff radioed abruptly. “Partly it’s a lack of coherent memories. I might have taken on a few too many Builder recollections too quickly. They aren’t zipped remembrances, but they are cumbersome nonetheless.”
“Spit it out,” Maddox said. “What’s the problem?”
“The Old Ones—the Yon-Soths—have or had a unique function in our galaxy,” Ludendorff said. “I don’t quite understand that function. No. Here at the possible end I’m not going to lie. I have no idea what that special function might be. It has to do with…aliens, possible machines or quantum matrix technologies either in the galactic core or on the edge of the core.”
“Meaning what?” Maddox asked.
“The Yon-Soths are…advanced techs, I suppose you could say.”
“They’re like Kai-Kaus technicians?”
“That’s likely a poor analogy,” the professor said, “but it’s the best I can do under the circumstances. I have the feeling it’s not an immediate problem. But the Builders wanted to keep one galactic tech around in case the problem ever cropped up again.”
“Okay…” Maddox said.
“If we kill Ghar-Yon-Tog and Nay-Yog-Yezleth on the Forbidden Planet—”
“Where?” asked Maddox, interrupting. “Who is Nay-Yon-Yezleth and where’s the Forbidden Planet?”
“There’s a second if considerably weaker Old One in the Beyond,” Ludendorff said. “It’s where the Spacers went when they fled Human Space, or where some of them went, anyway. They’ve been working on a special project inside the Forbidden Planet.”
“This world in the Beyond is near Human Space?” Maddox asked.
“I believe so,” Ludendorff said, groaning afterward. “Oh, my head hurts. I’m sick of shoving Builder data into my mind. I want this to end.”
“No doubt,” Maddox said. “Well, I’m not going to worry about alien super-science techs having work to do in the galactic core. Likely, in time references, this is meaningless to humanity. Likely, whatever trouble these Old Ones were or are supposed to fix won’t take place for thirty thousand years or more. So, who cares about it now?”
“That’s a cavalier attitude,” the professor said.
“As a Star Watch officer, I worry about the Commonwealth first and foremost,” Maddox said. “We kill Ghar-Yon-Tog, make the hyper-spatial tube, leave and make sure to blow the nexus after us. That’s the plan. That’s it. We don’t worry about anything else.”
“I cannot be party to that,” Ludendorff said.
Maddox scoffed. “Then you’d better damn well change your mind quickly, Professor. You’re on my team, which means you’re going to obey orders for once. Do I make myself clear?”
Ludendorff did not respond.
“Dana dies if we do this differently,” Maddox said.
Ludendorff mumbled.
“I can’t hear you, Professor.”
“Fine,” Ludendorff said sullenly. “Let’s murder the future so we can save ourselves—”
“Right,” Maddox said, interrupting as the professor tried to say more. “Now, we’re finally on the same page. How much farther to the star gate?”
Ludendorff did not answer.
“Professor?” Maddox warned.
“Take a right at the next intersection,” Ludendorff said, “and go down at the second intersection. After a few more turns, you can’t miss the gate after that.”
Maddox gripped the trigger-throttle of his thruster pack. It was too bad he hadn’t brought Keith along. Then, an idea struck. “Can anyone get a comm signal through to Victory?”
After a few moments, each of them gave him a negative reply.
“Keep trying,” Maddox said. “If you do get through, tell them to ready a heavy salvo of antimatter missiles. If we can’t win here, we can’t allow the nexus to survive us. That way, this Swarm invasion fleet can’t hit Earth. Maybe other Swarm fleets will attack later, but not this one. We’ll buy our side a few more years at the worst.”
With that, the team fell silent as they zoomed through the ancient nexus.
-93-
Outside the Omega Nebula nexus aboard Starship Victory, Lieutenant Valerie Noonan was becoming increasingly anxious on the bridge.
No one aboard the ancient Adok vessel had seen the beam sent from the Great Machine on the Forbidden Planet. So that wasn’t what worried Valerie. Instead, it was Galyan’s steady reports of the approaching Swarm fleet moving en masse in their direction.
“Okay,” Valerie said, as she sat in the captain’s chair. “Now, I want to see them. Show me.”
Galyan made an internal adjustment, and the scene on the main screen changed as the nexus vanished. In its place was a gaseous, dirt-debris cloud nebula with patches of open space. By degrees, motion occurred behind all that gas and dirt.
“Do you see, Valerie?” Galyan asked.
“I see movement but can’t see exactly what’s causing the motion.”
“Those are approaching Swarm motherships.”
“Where are the advance scouts?”
“The Swarm appear to have forgone sending out more scouts,” Galyan said. “Perhaps the Hive Masters running the fleet have decided they know our location.”
“Are you getting sensor pings?” Valerie asked.
“A few,” Galyan admitted.
“When were you going to tell me about them?”
“I am telling you, Valerie. That is partly why I have been pestering you—using your own term for my repeated warnings.
”
“You’ve made your point,” Valerie said. “The Swarm is coming for us. Why aren’t they going the wrong way? The captain used the drones to trick them as to our true location.”
“I will give you a simple reason,” Galyan said. “The Swarm sensors likely see just enough to know our position. Perhaps our presence has given away the nexus’s position as well, making us doubly visible.”
“Perhaps,” Valerie said gloomily. She drummed the fingers of her left hand on the left-hand armrest of the command chair.
“We must do something, Valerie,” Galyan said.
“I know that. But I don’t know what to do. I’m open to suggestions.”
“On Earth, certain parent birds will squawk and carry on,” Galyan said. “They will flop on the ground to draw a predator away from their vulnerable young. We can draw the fleet from the nexus and use the star drive later to jump near the nexus.”
“I understand the procedure,” Valerie said. “The hyper-spatial tube should appear any second, though. We have to wait for it or we’ll be stranded out here in the Sagittarius Arm for the rest of our short lives.”
“Lieutenant,” Andros said, looking up from his board. “I’m receiving a strange signal from the nexus. It’s weak—”
“From whom?” Valerie asked, cutting off the Chief Technician.
“It’s…Sergeant Riker,” Andros said. “Lieutenant, this is incredible. Riker is instructing me to tell you to mass antimatter missiles outside the ship.”
“How will a few antimatter missiles help us against 143,000 Swarm motherships?” Valerie asked.
“The missiles aren’t for the Swarm,” Andros said. “You’re supposed to get ready to destroy the nexus. Riker says under no circumstances are you supposed to let the Swarm board it.”
Valerie stared at Andros Crank, and a moment later, she nodded sharply. “Tell Riker I understand, and I’ll comply.”
“Valerie,” Galyan said. “You can’t destroy the nexus.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“That will kill the captain,” Galyan said. “We must save him.”
“Orders are orders,” Valerie said grimly. “These also happen to make perfect sense.”
“No,” Galyan said. “You must gain communication with the captain.”
Valerie and Galyan looked at Andros. The Chief Technician shook his head. “I’ve lost the connection,” he said. “I’m not sure I can get it back anytime soon.”
“Valerie, please,” Galyan said. “You are the acting captain of the ship. You have to do something smarter than just blowing everything up.”
“Why?” she asked. “It’s what you Adoks did against the Swarm when you faced them six thousand years ago.”
The little holoimage looked crestfallen as his ropy shoulders slumped.
“I’m sorry, Galyan,” Valerie said. “I shouldn’t have said it like that.”
“It does not matter,” Galyan said sadly. “My friends want to destroy themselves. Everything I touch dies. It is my curse.”
Valerie stared at the holoimage. “Are you trying to use psychology on me so I’ll change my mind?”
Galyan would not look up.
“When did you become so devious?” Valerie asked.
The holoimage shrugged listlessly.
Valerie drummed her fingers more relentlessly on the armrest. “Andros, can you pinpoint the team’s location inside the nexus?”
“I can tell you where they were—or Riker was—when he sent the message.”
“Put in on the main screen,” Valerie said.
“What is your plan, Valerie?” Galyan asked.
“I don’t have one yet. I’m thinking.”
Lieutenant Noonan studied the graphic Andros Crank superimposed upon the nexus.
The lieutenant slapped the armrest the way she’d seen Maddox do on occasion. And just like the captain, Valerie stood up and put her hands behind her back as she approached the main screen.
“Mr. Crank,” Valerie said, mimicking the captain once more. “We’re here to destroy the nexus no matter what else happens. Therefore, we’re going to burn down some of that structure beforehand.”
“Why would you do that, Valerie?” Galyan asked. “You risk destroying the nexus before it creates a hyper-spatial tube.”
“I want a direct link with the captain, and that’s the best way I can think of to get one,” Valerie said. She looked around, walked back to the command chair and sat down, instructing the weapons officer to begin heating up the disrupter cannon.
-94-
With her large Spacer thruster-pack, Mako 21 dragged a huge weightless cylindrical container through a dark corridor on the Omega Nebula nexus. The container was ancient beyond reckoning and had a unique engine within to power a portal—a star gate—between nexuses.
Not that Mako gave undue conscious consideration to what she did. She had found an attachment in the darkness some time ago. A tug in her mind had bidden her to plug the attachment to her suit. She had turned the attachment over and over with her gloved hands. The debate had proven tedious, but in the end, the thought of becoming a godling had beaten down her innate caution.
Mako had plugged the attachment to her suit, and she had not remembered anything since then. Instead, a new will several thousand light-years away guided her body.
Mako’s blind eyes used her goggles to peer through the visor of her spacesuit helmet as she dragged the last piece of the star gate to its rightful location. This piece was massive, making her thruster pack look like a harbor tug dragging a great ocean liner.
The Old One—Ghar-Yon-Tog—resided in a different nexus and was in deep stasis sleep. But he was nothing like a hominid or an insect-like Swarm creature or even like a Builder of old. The Yon-Soth was from the dawn time of the universe, a monster many would say, with primordial powers and energies that dwarfed those of puny humanity. His intellect was cold, possibly evil as seen from a human perspective, and immense. Yes, he slept in a real sense. Yes, his city-block long tentacles did not move but for the odd twitch of the very tip. And like a human, Ghar-Yon-Tog dreamed constantly while asleep. But his dreams were not like a man’s dreams.
The Old One’s dreams could slither along the undercurrents of the universe, traveling in an astral sense throughout far regions of the galaxy. At times, given the right conditions, Ghar-Yon-Tog could tug a mind or insert a thought. If one journeyed near enough to his prison nexus, he could drive thinking beings mad, causing them to commit insane acts. Such had happened to a Swarm Hive Master and his science fleet.
By adding the ancient attachment to her suit, Mako had committed a fatal blunder. The appeal of godhood had been too powerful to resist. The attachment had been her apple, but instead of knowing good and evil, she fell under the dominating power of the Old One’s dreaming intellect.
After eons in the Builder trap, Ghar-Yon-Tog would be free again to practice his deceptions on the universe. He would go to the galactic core, to the ancient machines, and there rob the god-tombs for the weapons to make a galaxy burn in unholy horror to pay for his unjust imprisonment.
The only glitch to this perfect plan was that the little Spacer piloting the thruster pack was proving a more difficult pawn than he’d anticipated. It had caused more of Ghar-Yon-Tog’s dream concentration to turn on her.
He remembered her, and her former resistance, when she had unplugged from the Meditation Machine multi-mind entity with the Visionary and other properly duped Spacers. No matter, Mako 21 was still here to do what needed doing.
Inside her spacesuit and behind her goggles, Mako had a fixed stare. She had entered the dark chamber behind the locked hatches, moving through wondrous equipment, found the attachment, plugged it in—and she’d remembered nothing since then. However, a tiny spark of her ego-id had darted into the deepest recesses of her modified brain. There, Mako yet lived. There, she realized with sick understanding that all of this had been a dreadful trick and a trap. Ghar-Yon-Tog and later, N
ay-Yon-Yezleth, had guided the gullible Spacers into one folly after another.
She was the key that was going to unlock a monstrosity. She knew deep in the recess of her ego-id fortress that Ghar-Yon-Tog had plans for the Swarm Imperium. As the Ska guided the Nameless Ones, Ghar-Yon-Tog was going to mold the bug Imperium, turning them into an even greater all-conquering nightmare that would consume the galaxy in a growing tide of Yon-Soth revenge.
There were thoughts about galactic-core machines that she did not understand. There were histories and knowledge of such primeval vastness and age that she could not grasp their meaning.
Ghar-Yon-Tog would awaken and enact a reign of horror as he revived the Old Ones out of time. She would use the star gate to travel to the other nexus and start the machine that would loosen the shackles chaining the ancient master in stasis sleep.
Mako cringed as she considered this. She was going to unleash a demonic reign onto the galaxy. The Visionary had much to answer for—the long line of Visionaries were like foolish and lonely girls listening to a pimp’s promises and envisioning a life of love and pleasure. Instead, this was the reward: enslavement of the worst kind.
Mako wanted to weep. The old Mako likely would have wept, if the old Mako would’ve had the power to resist Ghar-Yon-Tog even to this little degree. But she was the new Mako, a hardened individual with great innate and modification powers. She would bide her time and take her opportunity—if it ever arrived. Then, she would strike for her mind’s freedom.
That vainglorious thought brought a wave of horrors knocking on the last citadel of her personality. Through the attachment, Ghar-Yon-Tog was knocking, demanding utter servitude from her.
In that last recess of thought, Mako fought to hang on. Just a little longer, she told herself, a few more seconds of mental liberty, that was all she wanted.
The Lost Star Gate (Lost Starship Series Book 9) Page 46